An essay introducing a pivotal dialogue in WiLL magazine by Masayuki Takayama and Noriyuki Yamaguchi, exposing the dark core of the Moritomo scandal and questioning who truly benefited. Essential reading for anyone seeking truth beyond media narratives.

The Moritomo Scandal Reexamined: Who Lit the Fire, and Who Rejoiced
April 29, 2017.
This is required reading for all Japanese citizens.
It is also required reading for people around the world who wish to know what the truth truly is.
The sixteen-page, three-column dialogue feature in this month’s issue of WiLL magazine, titled “The Dark Matter and Core of the Moritomo Issue: Why the Name Kiyomi Tsujimoto Emerged and Then Everything Stopped,” featuring Masayuki Takayama and Noriyuki Yamaguchi, is required reading for all Japanese citizens.
It is also required reading for people around the world who wish to understand what truth really means.
I read it today on the train traveling to and from Kyoto.
It brilliantly demonstrated that Masayuki Takayama is a one-of-a-kind journalist in the postwar world.
At the same time, I am convinced that my own commentaries may also have given Takayama a push from behind.
Previous text omitted.
Resident Koreans of the Nakamura district.
Takayama.
Despite the fact that tensions surrounding North Korea were steadily escalating, the opposition parties were carelessly making a huge fuss over the Moritomo Gakuen issue.
Although it is finally beginning to fade out, this issue needs to be decisively settled.
And it is not entirely unrelated to North Korea either.
Yamaguchi.
The Moritomo issue began with newspaper articles in February claiming that state-owned land had been sold off at an unfairly low price.
I believe the turning point toward the issue’s resolution was triggered by Representative Kiyomi Tsujimoto.
Until Tsujimoto’s name appeared, the opposition parties were demanding that “all emails be disclosed.”
However, when it became clear that Tsujimoto’s name appeared multiple times in emails between Junko Kagoike, vice principal of Moritomo Gakuen’s Tsukamoto Kindergarten, and Akie Abe, the Democratic Party submitted requests to the media saying, “This is disinformation and must not be handled,” and “The emails sent by Junko Kagoike are false, so do not spread them.”
In other words, they were saying that Kagoike’s testimony was a lie.
Up to that point, the opposition had pursued Prime Minister Abe and his wife based almost exclusively on Kagoike’s claim that he had received one million yen from the prime minister, but the opposition itself ended up acknowledging that the Kagoikes’ statements lacked credibility.
Then there is the question of what kind of people comprised the group that Junko Kagoike said Tsujimoto had sent in as spies from the ready-mixed concrete workers’ union.
North Korea and China reported in their news that “Prime Minister Abe is facing trouble at an ultralight school.”
Simply put, they were pleased.
There are those who set the fire, and those who rejoice in it.
The question that remains is who benefited from this issue, and how that structure actually works.
Takayama.
To begin with, the land purchased by Moritomo was already problematic.
It lay directly beneath the approach path for aircraft landing at Itami Airport.
It was what is known as a restricted approach surface zone.
This is an important underlying factor, because since the 1970s residents in that area had been making a major uproar over the severe jet noise.
In particular, residents of the Nakamura district, which encroached into airport grounds, stormed the airport and caused disturbances in front of the Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways counters.
They claimed, “The noise makes our noses bleed uncontrollably,” and scattered blood-soaked tissues packed into cardboard boxes around the area.
They shouted, “Who will take responsibility for this?”
Such noise issues fell under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Transport’s Civil Aviation Bureau, but even if you spoke to them, you would not even be offered a cup of tea, and the arguments would never get through.
However, if you complained to private airlines, since they are customer-oriented businesses, causing a disturbance in the lobby would result in, “Well, please come this way,” and you would be taken into an office and served refreshments.
If things went well, you might even receive transportation money, and if you demanded airline tickets, tickets would be provided.
This went on for a long time.
It is questionable why people would live in a place where a runway runs right past their front yard, but their demands were accepted, leading to the closure of Itami Airport and the construction of the new Kansai International Airport.
Why was such an unreasonable demand allowed to pass.
That mystery was clarified in a 2010 “People” column in the Asahi Shimbun.
According to it, the residents of the Nakamura district were “people gathered from the Korean Peninsula before the war for airport expansion,” who were “suddenly reclassified as illegal occupiers after the war.”
The reporter, Taichiro Yoshino, wrote as if they were Koreans who had been forcibly taken and conscripted, but that is false.
In fact, the Asahi Shimbun itself has written that nearly all conscripted Koreans returned to the peninsula.
It is an article that deceives readers.
However, through this article, it became clear that the residents who caused such an uproar were Koreans illegally occupying airport land.
That explains why common sense does not apply to them and why, once they start causing trouble, they are impossible to control.
Yamaguchi.
I see, so that was the background.